New Story SummitInspiring Pathways for our Planetary Future

Although the summit is fully booked with a long waiting list, New Story Hub, a fledgling resource centre, offers a number of other ways for you to participate in this exciting event.

We are inviting people to group together to form Summit Hubs, to join us online in the first three days and then to create their own summit.

Or join us as an individual online during the event via Findhorn Live.

You can also post on our facebook page, subscribe to our youtube channel and follow us on twitter. In this way we can all generate a powerful event, building practical foundations reaching far into the future.

Special Event 27 September - 3 October 2014

For people, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation.

Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth

As we change our story, we change our world.

We humans find our way by story. Our stories shape us, hold us and give meaning to our lives. Every so often it becomes clear that a prevailing story is no longer serving. Now is such a time.

If we do not create a positive, realistic picture of the future, we will not live into it.

Our modern world faces unprecedented challenges and the increasing fragility of once robust systems - social, economic, religious, political and ecological. This visibly accelerating disintegration of the story lived since the industrial revolution can feel overwhelming. Caught in this apparent helplessness, contemporary narratives of the future oscillate between blind denial and apocalyptic devastation. Neither will help us live the transformational Great Turning that is still - though maybe only just - within our grasp.

Our Summit is designed to support the emergence of a coherent new story for humanity and to produce practical, collaborative ways to live this new story.

This Summit is our call to people of all ages and cultures:

those already living their edge of a new story

those who have carried the best of the old story forward, the ancient and indigenous wisdom

those investigating threads of possibility

those seeking inspiration and insight as to what could be: to gather with open hearts and minds to open to and experience what we can co-create together.

Our intended levels of inquiry

What is needed now, on every level, is to start weaving the threads of the new story together, to create purposeful images of a life-sustaining and compelling future.

Thank God our time is now when wrong Comes up to face us everywhere, Never to leave us till we take The longest stride of soul we ever took.

Christopher Fry

So much is going wrong and yet so many are sowing seeds of light in the encroaching darkness. It is precisely in times of great challenge that humanity is capable of profound transformation. Generations alive today have the unique opportunity to sow the seeds of a planetary culture that creates quality of life for all people and Earth's ecosystems.

We invite you to help us accelerate our collective understanding of what the ‘world in waiting’ holds for us, what is already emerging and what needs to change, in us and in the human story, sooner rather than later.

Seeding Themes to energise our collective inquiry include:

Seeding themes we are calling in

We intend to 'live the new story' even as we dream into it, listening deeply into the threads of collective wisdom that emerge and allow these to shape our ongoing flow:

Day 1–2: Building Community

Day 2–3: Sowing the Seeds of the New

Day 4–5: EMERGENCE

Day 6–7: Weaving the Threads

Day 7: Integration

We vision this summit as a work-in-progress rite of passage to accelerate the emergence of the new story in the world at large.

We will use innovative funding strategies to enable a global and multigenerational community participation.

We anticipate every participant leaving with a deeper more coherent sense of what the new story is for them and how they can live it and share it with their chosen communities. We hold this as an evolutionary process, trusting that others will be inspired to create networks, projects and events to evolve it further.

This Summit will:

strengthen networks, projects and events to support the implementation of the new story

create a transformational atmosphere of personal and planetary change

Participants will:

take part in experiential learning, forums, discussions, group processes, reflection and creative expression

connect to the global family as a growing wave of global change

discover a deeper, more coherent sense of what the new story is - and how to live it

The new era is already here: Will you be at the harvest? Then you must begin today... Press forward the human genius Our future is greater than our past.

Ben Okri

Humanity is undergoing a maturation rite of passage at the species level in its transition from fear based competition, conspicuous consumption and empire building towards peaceful cooperation, co-creation with nature, interconnected community - and what else besides?

Come and help us find out. Be part of this next great adventure.

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Towards a gift economy...

The Findhorn Foundation Community is taking a leap of faith with this event. We are an organisation and a community living with enormous non-monetary wealth and on a slim financial budget and we are taking this leap as part of living and co-creating more trust everywhere. It's time to step into the new story!

We are giving New Story Summit as our gift to the world and to the evolution of human consciousness. We are letting go of our conventional model of tiered pricing and inviting participants to decide what gift to Findhorn is appropriate.

We welcome the more intimate relationships giving and receiving encourage - together we will cover the costs of this event in creative co-responsibility. Presenters, too, are coming in the spirit of gift.

Although the gathering is full in the physical sense, we welcome you as a co-creator of this exciting experiment to click on the image to the right if you feel drawn to contribute financially.

For more information on gifting options (particularly if you live in USA) please click here to view and download a PDF document.

Join the Findhorn New Story Community on

Committed global storytellers to date include:

Bayo Akomolafe is a clinical psychologist, lecturer and author from Covenant University in Nigeria. His is an emerging voice in the world calling for a multi-dimensional shift in consciousness and systemic reification by turning to each other in small ways, and reconnecting with our 'shamanic effusiveness and utter magnificence'. Co-founders of a network called Koru, Bayo and his 'life-force', Ej, are currently on an enchanted (and vulnerable) journey to reclaim their lives and intimacy with the earth, with others and with a larger palette of possibilities. He is writing his second book, And We Shall Dance with the Mountains and a novel, The Boy Who Stayed Outside. Ej and Bayo are ecstatic parents of a girl, Alethea.

Paul Allen holds an Honours degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Liverpool University and joined the now famous Centre for Alternative Technology in 1988, responsible for design, development and production of a wide range of renewable energy systems including solar powered medical systems for use in Bosnia, Eritrea and many other parts of the world. In 1995 Paul took up the newly created position as CAT's Media and Communications Officer, and in 1997 was a founding director of EcoDyfi, the local regeneration organisation for the Dyfi Valley. Paul is currently CAT's External Relations Officer and since 2006 has led the ground-breaking Zero Carbon Britain research programme, liaising directly with key policy makers in Government, business, public sector and the devolved assemblies to disseminate the findings of the work. Paul became a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust fellow in 2013, was a board member of the International Forum for Sustainable Energy in 2008 and Climate Change Commissioner for Wales in 2007.

Mary Alice Arthur is a Story Activist, using story in service of positive systemic shift and to access and create collective intelligence on critical issues. Her art is creating and hosting spaces for wise action, and narrative practice forms a key part of her work, focusing both on Storytelling and StoryWork and the emergent space in-between. Her powerful results from a telecommunications merger project were written up in the 2006 book Wake Me Up When the Data is Over: How Organisations Use Stories to Drive Results (ed: Lori Silverman). Now, she is researching how the finding and awakening of positive systemic stories can help accelerate change. For the past two and a half years she has been working with a team in Denmark on the story of the country going bankrupt in 1813 - a time of moving from crisis to possibility. This work includes a public conversation on Constitution Day, June 5, and aim to create public participation in making Constitution Day, Conversation Day. She is an Art of Hosting Steward and works under the auspices of her own company, SOAR (Significant Orientations, Amazing Results). These days she is also an intentional nomad, living and working all over the world.

Rachel Bagby sings, speaks, writes books, mentors many and serves as a Muse. Her training includes a J.D. from Stanford Law School in Social Change and being a fourth-generation daughter of healers, educators, farmers, community organisers, preachers and artists. She helps leaders of paradigm shifters like Google, Green for All and several MacArthur Genius Grant Award-winners unleash forces of nature within to get their next, big loving Life-on-Earth changing thing done.

Sophy Banks has followed a lifelong enquiry into human systems and how they work – and why they often don't - from industrial engineering to psychotherapy to community responses to our current social and ecological challenges. She currently works for Transition Network, supporting the inner dimension of the process of building the New Story where you live. Sophy co-founded Transition training, teaching people around the world how to use the Transition model to get something started in their place, and is still part of the Totnes project where the Transition experiment began in 2006. Sophy has worked as an engineer, computer consultant, therapist, family constellator, facilitator and healer. She used to play a lot of football on Hackney marshes, but now spends her spare time in gentler pursuits, growing food and flowers, walking on Dartmoor and cycling up and down Devon hills.

Lua Bashala-Kekana is a Congolese woman currently living between South Africa and the Congo with her husband Lucky Kekana and their two children. She has a background in business and politics, having read law at Wits University. Spending over 10 years living in USA, Canada and Europe has broadened her worldview and understanding of social structures and possibilities. Lua and her family are currently working on developing Mama Na Bana Ecovillage and Permaculture Living and Learning Centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Orland Bishop combines an extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology and indigenous cosmologies with a deep dedication to human rights advocacy and cultural renewal. He was a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Violence at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and has consulted for many human development organisations in the United States and internationally. Orland is co-founder and Executive Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, a unique organisation devoted to the mentoring of young people and the creation of communities to support them. ShadeTree's Genesis Pathway uses the core idea of 'genius to genius' mentoring which helps to reveal the inherent gifts in each individual while seeking ways for each to live productively and originally in the world. Through ShadeTree, Orland has pioneered approaches to urban truces and working with at-risk youth that combine indigenous wisdom and practices with contemporary methodologies designed to mentor the human potential and create intentional communities. He has developed processes that support people to come into deeper inner and collective agreements in order to heal violence and social exclusion. Orland is currently focusing on understanding the deeper meaning of money as a pathway to designing new economic forms that support healthy community life.

Julie Cajune is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. She has had the privilege to grow up and raise her two children in the aboriginal territory of her ancestors. Julie is a yaya (grandmother) of three unique and remarkable young boys.

Clinton Callahan is a Memetic Engineer and Possibility Trainer with a degree in Physics who moved to Europe from America in 1995. Since then with a growing team of edgeworkers he pioneers the rapid evolution of sustainable-culture thoughtware in Possibility Management, including Expand The Box trainings, Possibility Labs, Trainer Labs, and a number of nonlinear meeting technologies (such as MESS, Frying Pan, and the Phoenix Process). Through books, videos and transformational healing, initiatory and training spaces, Next Culture Research & Training Center (NCRTC) empowers individuals, small companies, and ecovillages to establish a culture of archetypally-initiated adult women synarchistically collaborating with archetypally-initiated adult men. Clinton is co-founder of the Trainer Guild, author of Conscious Feelings and Radiant Joy Brilliant Love (also available in German), and part of the Gaian Road Team who followed Gaia's impulses around the world weaving critical connections between a wide variety of cultural creatives several of whom will also be attending the New Story Summit.

Shaun Chamberlin has been involved with the Transition Network since its inception, co-founding Transition Town Kingston and authoring The Transition Timeline, which focuses on the need for new stories of our times and our future. He also edited last year's Moneyless Manifesto, a deep exploration of the gift economy and its application. He is a director of both the Ecological Land Co-operative, working to secure access to land for sustainable rural livelihoods, and the Fleming Policy Centre, which first developed the idea of carbon rationing. Shaun has delivered presentations everywhere from Climate Camps and Occupations to the London School of Economics, the UK and Scottish Parliaments and the European Commission. He has also been shortlisted for the Sheila McKechnie Foundation Environmental Campaigner Award, as well as being named Kingston's 'Green Champion' by the local council and newspaper. His website is Dark Optimism.

Gigi Coyle is a facilitator, mentor, trainer and guide in wilderness rites of passage and the nature of council for both youth and adults. She's a co-founder of The Ojai Foundation, an educational retreat sanctuary for youth and adults. With a master’s degree in international relations, she has worked in many countries and cultures over the past 40 years in the area of citizen diplomacy. She has co-led journeys to the rainforest, to the oceans, to the desert. Today, she leads a number of intergenerational service projects as part of Beyond Boundaries, and continues a lifetime relationship with the School of Lost Borders and The Ojai Foundation, serving as international coordinator for the Center For Council Practice. She is co-author of The Way of Council and The Box: Remembering The Gift.

Eika De La Rosa is a young leader of the Rosario Islands (one of the most important areas of coral reefs and other coastal ecosystems). Her first steps in community leadership occurred when her community was threatened with displacement by the state. Along with her father she has been part of the group that has defended the rights of the Afro-Colombian population to remain in their ancestral territories (occupied as a result of the fight against slavery in Colombia). Currently she is a leader in the movement of youth Afro in the Colombian Caribbean. Recent efforts resulted in her winning a process to defend fishermen against big construction companies in Cartagena. She is closely linked to the ecovillage movement in the country and in a process to strengthen the support to communities with big needs of recognition and strategies of sustainability and adaptation. Eika and her community are currently waiting for the State to finally give them collective rights to their territory.

Drew Dellinger Ph.D., is an internationally known speaker, poet, writer, and teacher whose keynotes and poetry performances address ecology, justice, cosmology and connectedness. He is also a consultant, filmmaker and founder of Planetise the Movement. He has presented at over 1,200 events across the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and has spoken and performed at many conferences including Bioneers, the Green Festival, the Dream Reborn, and the Parliament of the World's Religions - as well as colleges and universities, poetry venues, protests and places of worship. Drew's award-winning book of poems, love letter to the milky way, was selected by ForeWord Reviews magazine as a 2011 Book of the Year Award Finalist. His poems have been cited and quoted in venues ranging from prison workshops to climate change hearings before the US Congress. As a consultant, he was a core developer and designer of the Pachamama Alliance's Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium, now used in 78 countries, in 18 languages.

May East, CEO CIFAL Scotland, UNITAR Associated Training Centre, sustainability educator and designer from Brazil to UK heading two international organisations: Gaia Education and CIFAL. Based at the Findhorn Ecovillage since 1992, May has been leading a whole generation of sustainability educators delivering trainings in 34 countries in the most different stages of development and in both urban and rural contexts. She has a UNITAR diploma on Climate Change Diplomacy and has been nominated one of the 100 Global SustainAbility Leaders 2011 and again in 2012. May is currently advising a series of projects seeking to enhance communities resilience to climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy in Bangladesh, Brazil, India and Cyprus.

Charles Eisenstein is a speaker and writer focusing on themes of civilisation, consciousness, money and human cultural evolution. His viral short films and essays online have established him as a genre-defying social philosopher and countercultural intellectual. Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy and spent the next ten years as a Chinese-English translator. The author of Sacred Economics and Ascent of Humanity, he currently lives in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Charles' website.

Mohammed El Mongy is passionate about environmental sustainability. After spending two years in AIESEC International as Director for Africa he completed his Masters in Environment and Development in Edinburgh. For the past ten years he has worked on sustainable development issues and projects throughout Africa, being involved in many projects concerning National Parks management, water sanitation, environmental impact assessment and cultural heritage preservation.

Rosemary Olive Mbone Enie is a Cameroonian Geologist, Gender Ambassador of the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA), and the Netherlands and Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) Africa Council Member/Ambassador. She has 23 years' experience within the African water, sanitation, hygiene, environmental management and education sectors, 18 years' experience in the Gender and Development sector, and 14 years' experience in international climate change negotiations. She has lived and travelled across Africa, Europe, North/Central America, Asia and the Middle East, currently living in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is very passionate about Women in Mining in Africa and is presently the Executive Director of the Tanzania Women Miners Association. Her vision is to contribute to the empowerment of women and youths and to play a major role in Global Green Economic Development. In 2012 as part of the Earth Day she launched the Green School Programme in Arusha, Tanzania. To share her experience, skills, knowledge and ideas as an environmental entrepreneur/green activist, she is setting up the Barak Obama Youths (BOYs) Centre and the GEN Africa Institute in Tanzania to build the capacity of young Tanzanians and Africans. Rosemary serves on many boards including the International Advisory Board for Women Earth Alliance and also works as the International Coordinator for the Pan African Climate Education Centre/Women Environment and Climate Action Network based in Accra, Ghana.

Jodie Evans has been a peace, environmental, women's rights and social justice activist for over 40 years. She has traveled to war zones, promoting and learning about peaceful resolution to conflict. She served in the administration of Governor Jerry Brown and ran his presidential campaigns. She published two books, Stop the Next War Now and Twilight of Empire, and produced several documentary films, including the Oscar and Emmy-nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America, The People Speak, and the Oscar-nominated The Square. Jodie co-founded CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and sits on many boards, including 826LA, Rainforest Action Network, Institute for Policy Studies and Drug Policy Alliance.

Cathy Fitzgerald is a NZ born artful eco action forest transformation practitioner who has been living in Ireland since 1995. She has a background in and works across biological research, art, environmental theory and Green politics. Her recent art practice doctoral work centres on her ongoing work begun in 2008 when she began transforming the small monoculture conifer plantation she and her husband live in as a long-term eco art project. Her work with Hollywood forest has contributed to both new Forest Policy and that a Law of Ecocide be supported the Green Party of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and to the Irish Forest Council COFORD (LISS) study on transforming conifer plantations to non clearfell Close-to-Nature continuous cover forests. Her experimental films were recently short-listed for the 2013 Forest Europe award. To this summit she brings the 'voice', the sights and sounds of Hollywood - 'the little wood that could' through her audiovisual book Resiliencies: stories of transformation from a small Irish forest. Cathy's work is inspired by the work of Deep Ecologist and ecoforest writer Alan Drengson who has said that "Learning how to live responsibly with forest communities is transferable to all other areas of human interaction with Nature". See more of the Hollywood Diaries at ecoartfilm.

Samara Gaev is a New York based activist, educator and theatre director who sees performance as a tool for cross-cultural education and social change in such places as Zimbabwe, Senegal, Hawaii, Brazil, Peru, Cuba and throughout the U.S. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, a social justice based hip-hop theatre company for high school and college-aged youth in NYC to narrate their own experiences and perspectives in ways that unpack and shift the dominant, often stereotypical narratives in mainstream media. Samara is honoured to be the Resident Artist/Scholar at Columbia University's Teachers College: Graduate School of Education. She is a recipient of the 2009 Next Generation of Leadership Fellowship through the Centre for Whole Communities, where she is now faculty.

Alixa Garcia from Colombia, interweaves spoken word, lyricism, multimedia theatre and pan flute beat boxing to bring voice to the stories that go untold. Alixa is an innovative educator who has led workshops from universities to prisons across the US and is currently co-developing a multimedia social justice curriculum based on her latest production Hurricane Season, building the new leadership essential for fundamental social change. She is one half of Climbing PoeTree, an artist activist duo whose work is designed to expose injustice, heal from violence, and make a better future visible, immediate and irresistible. In 15 self-organised tours over the past 10 years, Climbing PoeTree has appeared in more than 70 cities across the U.S. and abroad from the UK to Mexico, South Africa to Cuba.

Naresh Giangrande is the pioneering co-founder of Transition Town Totnes (TTT) and Transition Training. He has been involved in designing, running and evolving many of the events, groups and trainings that have been at the heart of the enormously successful Transition Towns project. He has delivered the Training for Transition, Transition Talk Training, Train the Trainers, and Transition training for Local Authorities and organisations to hundreds of participants in 11 countries. As one of the Transition Town founders he has given dozens of lectures and interviews, and spoken at many conferences and other public events. He set up and coordinated the energy group of TTT, and is currently a director of TTT Ltd.

Tjanara Goreng Goreng is a Wakka Wakka/Wulli Wulli woman carrying the traditions of her clan through medicine practice, as a songwoman and by teaching Aboriginal Law and Spirituality to people throughout the world. She is an assistant professor, University of Canberra and founded FIRDA (The Foundation for Indigenous Recovery & Development, Australia) with her elders and indigenous women in 2000. FIRDA is a nonprofit community-based agency working with businesses, communities and individuals globally to reconcile our shared pasts, support understanding of the sacredness of Earth's systems, and follow practices rooted in connection with self, others and the Earth. She has worked with Australian federal and state governments as a Senior Policy Advisor on housing, indigenous affairs and disabilities, developing and implementing programmes for systemic bi-cultural change, and between 1991 and 2008 was an academic or Director of Aboriginal Education Units at five Australian universities. Tjanara is an inspiring co-creator of engagement between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples through using her own stories, songs and dances passed to her from generations of knowledge and wisdom in her clans, and the shared circles she co-creates for holding healing and shared story/history.

Joshua Gorman is a writer, speaker, trainer, movement builder, and one of the leading story-tellers about the paradigm-shifting role of the Millennial generation. He is the founder of Generation Waking Up, an organisation igniting a generation of young changemakers to bring forth a thriving, just and sustainable world. Joshua studied Global Youth and Social Change at George Mason University and supports youth-led projects and movements widely. He is a founding member of Youth Passageways, a network of individuals and organisations working across the fields of contemporary rites of passage, youth and community development, intergenerational collaboration, and cultural renewal. Joshua is a lifelong student of human development and transformational education with a focus on providing young people the experiences, knowledge and skills they need to thrive in the twenty-first century. He is currently working on a book about today's younger generations within the new story context.

Edgard Gouveia Júnior trained at the University of Santos, Brazil, in Architecture and Urban Planning. On graduating, he and his colleagues co-founded the Elos Foundation, an architectural firm dedicated to community activism. Pursuing their social mandate, they founded the Warriors Without Weapons Programme in 1999, a bi-annual five week training for young entrepreneurs to learn the tools of effective collaboration. He became a specialist in Cooperative Games and partner of Projeto Cooperação using the approach of games to build collaboration among teams in companies, communities and networks. The strength of this methodology soon led to the Oasis Game, a three- to ten-day activism model. Edgard has been active internationally for the past 15 years teaching this playful social methodology. For the past two years, Edgard has been actively engaged in a new project, Play The Call, a global initiative that aims to activate and connect over two billion young people in global activism projects through the creation of a new game - playing to save the world in a way that is fast, free, fun and fantastic. He is an Ashoka Fellow, a Berkana Fellow and TRIP Transformers Fellow.

Polly Higgins is an Earth Lawyer, award-winning author of Eradicating Ecocide and daring to be great. For Polly, a more beautiful world comes from a place of love, trust and deep care. Her work is based on a vision of a world without Ecocide, where each and every one of us is a trustee of planet Earth. She has paved the way for laws based on a 'First Do No Harm' well-being principle, building on the ancient wisdom of what is known in law as the Sacred Trust of Civilisation. Polly's website, Eradicating Ecocide website.

Rowan Hotchkiss is a 16 year old former homeschooling student, now exploring 'Running Start', a joint high school/college programme for students looking to graduate with their AA. She is currently focused on General Science, Math, English, Art and Community Leadership. Becoming interested in sustainable living while growing up at the Ojai Foundation, she continues to explore both spontaneous and intentional community building wherever she goes. Now living in the Pacific Northwest near Seattle, Washington State, she has recently been involved in helping to stage cross-generational community events and festivals. She has traveled to Germany, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Mexico, as well as Findhorn, when she came with her parents three years ago to research eco-opportunities. She is looking forward to returning.

Manish Jain is deeply committed to re-imagining community learning ecosystems, serving for the past 15 years as coordinator/co-founder of Shikshantar, The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, Udaipur, India, and as chief editor of a magazine for Walkouts-Walkons, Swapathgami (Making Our Own Paths of Living and Learning). He is co-founder of Swaraj University, India's first self-designed learning university dedicated to the regeneration of local cultures, local economies and local ecologies. He is a co-founder of the Giftival gift culture network. Manish is also a co-creator of the Udaipur as a Learning City process and served as faculty for sustainability and social entrepreneurship to Phoenix International Business School in Udaipur. He was a co-founder of the Berkana Exchange for trans-local community leadership centres. Prior to this, Manish worked as one of the principal developers of the UNESCO Learning Without Frontiers global initiative and as a consultant in areas including educational planning and media/technology with UNICEF, USAID, UNDP, World Bank, Academy for Educational Development, in Africa and the former Soviet Union. He also worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley focusing on the telecom and information technology sectors. For many years, he has been trying to unlearn his Master's degree in Education from Harvard University and a B.A. in Economics, International Development and Political Philosophy from Brown University.

Om Sunisa Jamwiset, from Thailand, studied Community Development and worked for five years on a research project called Alternative Communities in Thailand. She teaches courses in Ecovillage Design Education, socially engaged Buddhism and personal empowerment, and is currently working with her family to build the Gaia Ashram and start the Gaia School Asia organisation to work with children and youth in Asian countries on Connection with Nature and Holistic Worldview.

Kosha Joubert serves as the President of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) and Executive Director of GEN-Europe. She was born and grew up in South Africa. Her response to Apartheid deeply influenced her life's path: today, she works to facilitate international collaboration and sustainable development, bringing out the stories of communities and wisdom of solutions from all continents and cultures. She co-designed the Ecovillage Design Education and pioneered the development of the Transition2Resilience training. She is the author of a book on collective wisdom.

Nicholas Joyce lives at the Sirius Community. He is the founder of Drums For Development to create a sense of global unity through drumming. He is working with local sustainability leaders and creatives in Togo, West Africa, to build a Living and Learning Centre for Sustainability and Creative Culture. He is part of the Valhalla movement

Cynthia Jurs founded Alliance for the Earth, a nonprofit dedicated to global healing and collective awakening. She is a teacher in the Order of Interbeing of Thich Nhat Hanh who had her life transformed when she met an old wise man living in a cave and asked him, "What can we do to bring healing and protection to the Earth?" Thirty Earth Treasure Vases (ETVs) and 24 years later, in collaboration with indigenous elders, young activists and regular folks in communities around the world, a global healing mandala for the Earth has been established. Cynthia's long practice dedicated to sacred activism with the ETVs has taken her on pilgrimages to every continent where she has witnessed miraculous and creative solutions arise in response to prayers that have been made. She travels and teaches wherever she can and looks forward to telling her story in a book and documentary film sometime soon.Earth Treasure Vase website.

Linda Kabaira is a young Zimbabwean well experienced in project management with a strong commitment to serve the needs of disadvantaged communities. She has worked for over 12 years in the development and humanitarian field, with the vision to improve the quality of life for Zimbabweans, Africans, women and youth, with a specific focus on capacity building for vulnerable communities and individuals. Linda is currently working as a Coordinator for Zimbabwe Institute of Permaculture - Schools and colleges permaculture Programme (SCOPE).

Dhammanond Kijtiwachakul or Niki from Thailand, is a trainer, facilitator, educator and coach for individual and organisational growth. She is the founder of the Institute for Nurturing Minds and Social Transformation (INMiST).

Vera Kleinhammes was born into the project of Tamera and today is the coordinator of the Global Campus - a worldwide education platform for a new culture. She has a deep love for community and is committed to manifest the vision of a healed earth and protect the Sacred Alliance of all life.

Satish Kumar, a former monk and long-term peace and environment activist, has been quietly setting the Global Agenda for change for over 50 years. He has been the guiding spirit behind a number of now internationally-respected ecological and educational ventures including Schumacher College in South Devon where he is still a Visiting Fellow. He is editor of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine and author of You are, Therefore I Am: A Declaration of Dependence. Satish is on the Advisory Board of Our Future Planet, a unique online community sharing ideas for real change.

Lynnaea Lumbard is a transformational psychologist, Interfaith Minister, Wilderness Guide, community weaver, sacred activist and writer. She is co-president of New Stories, supporting great transition stories for who we are, who we are becoming and where we're going together.

César Daniel González Madruga was born in Mexico City and holds a BA in Political Science and Public Administration from the Universidad Iberoamericana, and a Masters in Politics, Management and Environmental Law from Anahuac University North. He is president of the national political group Horizontes and an announcer and host of several radio and television programmes. He is the Federal Deputy in the LXI Legislature chairing the committee on climate change, President of Parliamentarians for Climate Change 2010 UN Habitat 2012, Vice President of GLOBE internacional capítulo México 2010–2012, a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District VI Legislature, President of the Tourism Commission, Promoter of the Environmental Protection Act to Earth (Ley Ambiental de Protección a la Tierra), main proposer of the Emotional Health Act (Salud Emocional en Ley), and founding member of the Board of Universal Wisdom (Consejo de Sabiduría Universal). He is also a newspaper columnist in the Crónica de Hoy where he drives an awakening of consciousness to restore peace, order and justice in Mexico.

Kim Maynard dances in the interface between what exists and new possibilities. For 30 years she has worked in the heart of disasters and wars, supporting their transition from crisis to peace and renewal. She researches, writes, speaks, teaches and engages directly in revitalising war-torn communities through local collaboration. Kim sees disasters, political upheaval and conflict as an opportunity to change the status quo, to write a new story, to create new possibilities for the environment, relationships and political and economic spheres. She is currently exploring the potential creative role of non-violent conflict in the coming age and the power it has as an essential element in transforming the new reality. Kim holds a doctorate in International Affairs and is the author of numerous publications including Healing Communities in Conflict.

Pat McCabe, Woman Stands Shining of the Dine Nation, is a writer, artist, activist, and Creator for Thriving Life. She travels widely to pray and speak on the Science of Right Relations and the Feminine Design and Sustainability.

Ginny McGinn is an artist, social and environmental change activist, and executive director of the Center for Whole Communities. Throughout her career she has been deeply involved in the work of social and organisational change and in building partnerships across lines of power and privilege. She has a profound interest in how change happens, from the level of individual transformation through the level of entire communities or systems, and it is this process of change that she seeks to continue to study and facilitate in her leadership at Whole Communities.

Neema Namadamu is the leader of Maman Shujaa, Hero Women of Congo, and founder of Hero Women Rising and the Women's Media Training Centre in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Shammi Nanda is passionate about creating the world in which he wants to live. He offers workshops on NonViolent Communication, shares his practices of eating natural foods and fasting to bring higher states of health, brings ancient practices to care for the Earth in farms and urban gardens throughout India, and aims to rely less on money and more on gifts, generosity and simplicity. With friends he has co-created The Pune Homeschoolers, Organic Farming Communities, Shikshantar andolan, the Learning Societies Network, the NVC community in India, the Berkana network, and also works with co-con'spirit'ors around the world.

Shaun Nannup is an Australian Aboriginal man who, through his old people, has great depth and knowledge of culture, liaison and inspirational speaking. His work in such areas as mentoring, leadership and healing are highly revered and respected within Australia and beyond, and he significantly impacts both indigenous and non indigenous communities worldwide through his ability to connect through story. He understands how we need to connect and integrate the old knowledge of tribal societies with the knowledge of today to find a path for humanity to move forward. Shaun knows this involves healing the past, sharing the stories, learning a way through, loving one another, creating a vision and unifying people to live as 'one of one'. Shaun and his people have always known what science is only now discovering - he also knows we cannot go back, but we do need to bring the knowledge of the past forward.

Beatrice Achieng Nas is the Founder and Executive Director of Pearl Community Empowerment Foundation, a grassroots NGO that focuses on girls, women and children through dynamic programmes that directly involve, empower and benefit rural communities in Eastern Uganda through education, mentorship, training, advocacy and strategic partnerships for social, cultural and economic development. Beatrice found her voice globally through different platforms such as Wellesley Centres for Women, Wellesley College, World Pulse who connected her with a wide range of people, organisations across the United States including the White House Council on Women and Girls, Intel (10x10) in California, Bioneers conference, and several Universities across the United States.

Ivan Nazarov was born in 1987 in Minsk, studied Psychology at Moscow State Pedagogical University and in 2007 became a member of Kitezh therapeutic community for children, a unique rural village community of foster parents and teachers and a child-centred, therapeutic education centre with a vision to build a new consciousness in the world through their children. Ivan is a foster father of eight children and creates and organises role-play games in historical, sci-fi or fantasy style to help children tell an inspirational story and develop friendship, their own potential and respect for nature and their own and other cultures.

Mugove Walter Nyika is a Permaculture and Environmental Education specialist with international experience of working with governmental and non-governmental organisations to build resilient school and college communities. His mission is to use his life skills, land use design skills and passion for culture and the environment to listen, encourage and teach everyone, especially the children, to be empowered and to serve the common good. Mugove has worked with over 200 schools in all districts in Zimbabwe which led to the establishment of the Regional SCOPE (Rescope) Programme, based in Malawi but now working in several countries in east and southern Africa.

Jennifer Trujillo Obando worked her way out of the slums of Cali, Colombia to become part of the founding team of Impact HUB Bogotá with strong skills in social innovation and entrepreneurship. She is a practitioner of the Art of Hosting, Cooperative Games and Dances of Universal Peace, is a core team member of Colombian Ecovillage Network and technical staff of the Global Ecovillage Network. Jennifer is also involved in Warrior Without Weapons, is skilled in web design and virtual education implementation and was an expedition member of the Clean Energy Voyage: Antarctica International Treaty 2009 with Antarctica 2041 Ltda.

Richard Olivier is Artistic Director of Olivier Mythodrama, a leadership development consultancy using great stories, archetypal psychology, evolutionary philosophy and breakthrough coaching to provide initiatory learning. He directed Henry V for the opening of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 1997. He is a Fellow of the Findhorn Foundation and Associate Fellow of Said Business School, University of Oxford. He was a guest speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2003 and 2009 and received the Best Practice Institute's Top Thought Leader Award in 2013.

Anna R. Oposa is a freelance writer, public speaker and environmental advocate who represented The Philippines in the 35th Ship for the Southeast Asian Youth Programme, the Denso Youth for Earth Action, and the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. Anna used her Future for Nature Award from The Netherlands to begin a community-based conservation project for thresher sharks in Malapascua Island, Cebu and in 2013 was named one of Devex's 40 International Development Leaders Under 40. She has co-written a workbook for school children - An Introduction to Climate Change for Filipino Youth and is the co-founder of Save Philippine Seas. Anna was among the first Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum to participate in the 2012 Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland and now serves as the Manila Hub's Curator. She is also one of the 50 Councillors of the World Future Council, a non-profit based in Germany that brings the interests of future generations to the centre of policy making.

Adriana Witzilin Morales Ortiz was born in the Ciudad de Puebla and holds a Degree in Philosophy from the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. She assists in the Fundación Tlatelcutli A.C., dedicated to restoring the ecological balance and provision of services of Emotional Health. She is a member of the Board of Universal Wisdom (Consejo de Sabiduría Universal) and helped organise the Third Meeting of Universal Wisdom 'Science and Nature' at the Soumaya Museum, now also organising the fourth Meeting of the Council called 'Education for Development' (Educación para la Evolución), which will be held in November. She promotes ancestral wisdom and coordinated the social services students from the School of Medicine in Mashach with the Programme 'Indigenous you, Indigenous I?', reviving the cultural roots of young hearts in Mexico. She is a poet, mountaineer, a lover of wisdom, peace, coherence and nature.

Ousmane Pame, President of GEN-Africa, is a professor of translation, British civilisation and literature, and has worked as a coordinator of several American Universities Study Abroad Programmes at the West African Research Centre (Dakar, Senegal). From 2007 to 2010 he worked at the Dakar Earth Rights Ecovillage Institute as the resident academic director of Living Routes. Ousmane was also a founding member of the Association for the Research and Promotion of Intercultural Exchanges (ARPI) and has been actively involved in development projects and supporting deprived schoolchildren in his native Fouta (Northern Senegal) for the past ten years. Since 2009 he has been the Mayor of the Eco-town of Guédé Chantier.

Jonathon Porritt is Founder Director of Forum for the Future. Formerly Director of Friends of the Earth, co-chair of the Green Party and Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development, he is currently Co-Director of The Prince of Wales' Business and Sustainability Programme and Chancellor of Keele University. Author of Capitalism As If The World Matters, Globalism & Regionalism and Living Within Our Means; his latest book The World We Made, a credible vision of the world in 2050, was published in October 2013. Jonathon received a CBE in January 2000 for services to environmental protection. Jonathon's website.

Leticia Rigatti is native to Porto Alegre, Brazil. With an M.A. University of Barcelona, Leticia has extensive experience in social communication, dance and visual arts. She is co-founder of the Com&uagave;n Tierra Project, a nomadic project traveling in Latin America for the last three years visiting and documenting sustainable communities, producing educational multimedia materials, sharing their ideas, creative techniques and tools that can be applied around the world. Leticia is an active member of CASA Network in Latin America

Mohamed Charrat Rushd was born in 1985 in Casablanca, Morocco. He studied experimental sciences in high school where he was also an active member in sports and humanitarian associations. In 2002 he decided to study law (in French), took his degree in 2004 and license in 2006, followed by a two-year Masters Degree in Social and Public Communication, his project titled Acculturation in Morocco. His interest in voluntary and social activities led him to be a sports journalist and create two associations of human development and sports while also being president of the student club Student on Line in the Faculty of Economic and Social Legal Science Mohammedia, where he organised several conferences including The Integration of Sub-Saharian African in Morocco. In 2008 he participated in the documentary film Crossing Borders by director Arnd Wächter. He currently practises as a journalist, is an active member of several humanitarian, sports and environmental associations in Morocco, and teaches communication.

Elisabet Sahtouris Ph.D., is an internationally known evolution biologist and futurist, US and Greek citizen living in Spain. With a post-doctoral degree at the American Museum of Natural History, she taught at MIT and the University of Massachusetts, contributed to the NOVA-Horizon TV series, is a fellow of the World Business Academy with an honorary Chair in Living Economies, and an advisor to Ethical Markets. She convened international symposia on Foundations of Science in Hokkaido and Kuala Lumpur. Books: EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution; A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us and Biology Revisioned with Willis Harman. Elisabet's website.

Jonathan Santos, of African American and Puerto Rican descent, is an artist, poet, songwriter, community organiser and activist with a BA in Political Science. His works focus on social, intra-personal, and environmental justice always starting with self as his latest CD title I'm Changing the World, by changing me suggests. Santos created GlocalSoul Edutainment to connect the power of music and performance with self-empowerment, social justice, community building and wellness. He also works in schools through the Lyrics to Life: Poetry, Rhyme and Song series. His current focus is working within the African American community to empower and heal the youth of the next generation and to find pathways for young African Americans to join the world table and define themselves in a positive local and global context.

Will Scott M.A. is a teacher, naturalist, wilderness guide, regenerative designer, facilitator and longtime student of the human-nature relationship. Working at the edges and confluence of personal, social and ecological issues, Will has sought a holistic understanding of how to foster regenerative connections amongst people and planet. He is a recent co-founder of the Weaving Earth Centre for Relational Education, and a long-time guide with the School of Lost Borders.

Aida Shibli is a political networker, peace educator and holder of the vision of the Peace Research Village in the Middle East. Aida builds bridges between Palestinians and Israelis around earth and water-healing. She is a mother and a carrier of hope.

Puma Quispe Singona is a native Andean (Peruvian) medicine priest of the Runakuna (Quechua) people. He trained for 21 years, from age 3 to 24, with his grandfather, Don Maximo Puma Singona, one of the last traditional medicine priests of his culture. His training in traditional medicine included delivering babies, all natural medicines of the Andes, all ceremonies to the Pacha Mama (Earth) and Apus (sacred mountains) as well as peace ceremonies for all humanity. Puma has also been a member of international youth organisations such as INAYA (Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Youth Alliance) and YES (Youth for Environmental Sanity) and held talks and workshops in the US, Canada, Japan and Europe. He has a deep spiritual understanding of humanity's crises and is in close spiritual touch with beings of nature and other dimensions.

M. Kalani Souza is a gifted storyteller, singer, songwriter, musician, performer, poet, philosopher, priest, political satirist and peacemaker. A Hawaiian practitioner and cross-cultural facilitator, he has experience in promoting social justice through conflict resolution. His workshops and lectures inspire, challenge and entertain the listener while calling all to be their greater self.

Via video link David Spangler. David has been an author and teacher of spirituality since 1964. He lived and worked at the Findhorn Foundation community 1970-3, becoming the founder of its educational programme. In 1974 he, with others, created the Lorian Association, a non-profit spiritual educational foundation, where he still works. David has developed and taught classes at the University of Wisconsin, Seattle University, Bastyr University, and the California Institute of Integral Studies. Since 1974 he has been a Fellow of the Lindisfarne Association, an association of scientists, artists, philosophers, economists, and spiritual leaders working at the cutting edge of scientific and cultural transformation. His current work involves developing and teaching Incarnational Spirituality, intended to empower us to be sources of blessing and service for the world. His books include Emergence; Everyday Miracles; Parent as Mystic, Mystic as Parent; Blessing: The Art and the Practice and Manifestation: Creating the Life You Love.

Kritaya Sreesunpagit, known in Thailand as Au, founded an NGO working to support young people to become volunteers, social activist and social entrepreneur. Early on Au realised that she and others were mostly exhausted, full of resentment for the existing systems, and hating those who did not agree with them. Knowing that she could not create a loving and compassionate new world in this way and that social change needed to come through personal transformation, Au worked as a personal and group transformation facilitator at Spirit in Education Movement (SEM) until she was introduced to the Transformation Game®, created and pioneered at the Findhorn Foundation. Au now works independently as a Transformation Game® facilitator, and as the organiser of Transformation Game® Facilitator Trainings and other programmes in Thailand. Her social activist self sees New Story Summit as an opportunity to find new ways to be an activist.

Kahontineh Swamp, daughter of Chief Jake Swamp member of the Wolf Clan and the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation is a Mohawk Language Professor at State University of New York, Potsdam. Kahontineh is also a former Executive Director of the Tree of Peace Society, a Sisters in Spirit participant/activist and was a co-organiser of the Condolence Ceremony, June 2012.

Stephanie S. Tolan is a Newbery Honour and Christopher Award-winning author of 26 books for children and young adults. In her latest book for adults, Change Your Story, Change Your Life, she presents the reality-altering power of Story Principle. A consultant on highly gifted children and adults, she has spoken and written about their social, emotional and spiritual needs for 30 years, and her essay Is It a Cheetah? has been translated into more than 40 languages. A Senior Fellow at the Institute for Educational Advancement, she helped design Yunasa, a camp that focuses on helping kids balance body, mind, spirit, emotions and social selves. Stephanie's website.

Benjamin von Mendelssohn has been working for the Plan of the Healing Biotopes and Tamera for the past 16 years. Currently he is focusing on moving money into the manifestation of a global network of peace models.

Naila von Mendelssohn grew up in Tamera and is now 17. Through political journeys she is learning to become a planetary citizen and a voice for the youth of the world. Currently she is training herself as a film-maker.

Andrew White is Associate Dean of Executive Education and a Fellow in Strategic Management at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. His background is in the research of innovation management - a topic of increasing importance in a competitive and fast-changing world. The successful management of disruptive technologies and discontinuities have been at the heart of his work; these are key factors in today's highly fluid organisational environment. His research interests focus around inter-organisational information systems and technologies and how companies can successfully manage innovation. Andrew is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce, and a Scholar of the Advanced Institute of Management Research.

Chen Yu is from a small village in Sichuan Province, China. Through several scholarships Yu completed university and now works in Shanghai. Yu had one of the key roles in The Dialogue, a film made by Crossing Borders, a charity which empowers youth by deepening intercultural empathy. In 2013 she was employed to organise the Forbes Conference in Chengdu.

Margarita O Zethelius is a biologist from Colombia with an MSc in Conservation and Rural Development. Her experience includes design, management and implementation of sustainable development projects and community strategies for communication and education for conservation. A great networker, she is part of Berkley University's Environmental Leadership Programme and WWF's Education for Nature Programme. Margarita sits on the board of the Council of Sustainable Settlements of Latin America where she works on the inclusion of grassroots initiatives and the development of education strategies.

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Arrive early and enjoy a local event promoting community resilience (please find your own accommodation for any extra nights).Findhorn Bay Arts Festival Part of the Year of Homecoming Scotland 2014. 24 – 28 Sept 2014 Art installations, premiere performances and exhibitions, talks, tours and tastings, live music and dance, family and young persons events all combining to celebrate Moray's arts and culture and Findhorn Bay as an area of outstanding natural beauty. Full Festival programme released in June. For further information please contact[click here to contact] or visit Findhorn Bay Arts